1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of computer software and, more particularly, to an enhancement to system services interfaces.
2. Description of the Related Art
Microsoft system services are programs that constantly run in the background of an operating system that perform necessary actions for the operating system. For example, the Microsoft Windows XP™ Operating System includes a Clipboard Service, a Server Service, a Windows Time Service, and many others. System administrators often view and/or modify system services to troubleshoot computer, peripheral, and network problems. The viewing and modification of system services is generally performed using the appropriate administrative tools developed for the operating system upon which the services are run. For the Microsoft Windows XP™ Operating System, the administrative tools include the Microsoft Configuration Utility™ that manages system services.
The administrative tools for system services typically display all system services in an alphabetical fashion. The display can include a number of system services that are disabled or set to a manual state. Since different servers within a business network can have different purposes, only a subset of system services may be important. Nevertheless, conventional system service GUIs present all available system services, including a large quantity of relatively unimportant services.
Further, large computer networks can be managed by a number of system administrators, each in charge of a different portion of the network. Each network administrator typically is concerned with different views of the system services that can affect portions of the network with which that administrator is responsible. At present, because conventional tools display all services regardless of whether the administrator has rights to the service, system administrators must scroll through a large number of services to locate a small set of services to which the administrator has rights and/or authority. The presentation of all available system services within conventional management tools can therefore be inefficient and can be cumbersome to administrators. Further, the presentation of extraneous system services can represent a potential system security weakness; one permitting low-level administrators to seize control of system services outside of intended privilege boundaries.